More Details on UT's New Music Building

A followup story in the Knoxville News-Sentinel on UT's new music building.

The new $40 million facility ($30 from the state and $10 a gift from Jim and Natalie Haslam) will be built at the current location at the corner of Volunteer Boulevard and Andy Holt Avenue. The old building (Hallelujah!) will be torn down to make way for the new one, with construction slated to start spring of 2009.

But it will be a hassle for everybody, at least for the two years it will take to build it. The choir room would be moved to the (recently renovated, I believe) Panhellenic Building on Cumberland Avenue. UT bands and other large ensembles will get use of a large (hopefully heavily acoustically modified) gym in the Phys. Ed. Building across Andy Holt behind Tom Black Track. Other facilities would be located in Dunford Hall which, if memory serves correctly, is a block off of Cumberland Avenue on Volunteer. (Dunford has become a catch-all for construction-displaced departments, apparently. When I was there it was used as everything from UT Library to office space. It was originally a dorm, so I imagine that the small rooms will make excellent practice rooms.)

The new building sounds like it's going to be sweet! It will have a 600-seat concert hall (current one probably only holds about 300), a 225-seat recital hall (similar to facilities in the newly renovated Alumni Hall), larger rehearsal spaces for choir, band (including the Pride of the Southland), and other large groups, practice rooms, private studios, a recording studio, piano and music technology labs, classrooms, and administrative spaces. As a sacred music grad, I am speculating that the university would relocate the three or four practice pipe organs and reinstall them in the new building. Perhaps best of all, again, as a former student library assistant, I'm very happy to report that the music library will have three times its current space!

It's exciting to see UT finally taking an interest in the School of Music. (Back when I was there, it wasn't called a "school," it was just another liberal arts, uh... that is, arts and humanities--believe that's the current moniker.) The fact that they renovated Alumni Hall into a first-class performance venue, added rehearsal and chamber performance spaces, built a half-million-dollar pipe organ, and now are replacing the past-its-prime main building is evidence enough.

To have the Haslams take such an interest in the music program is not a bad thing, either. The Haslams, owners of Pilot Oil Corporation and parents to our current Knoxville mayor, have been supporting the symphony and opera company for many years. Apparently, they care about what kind of performers, composers, historians, theoreticians, and conductors will be feeding those organizations and those like them around the world.

According to the article, of the 175 students accepted to the music program last year, approximately 80 went elsewhere for their education due to UT's lack of modern music facilities. Kind of sounds like there might have been some financial incentive for the the university to build a new building, eh? C'mon, let's all admit it: UT is all about profit and the bottom line. Having the next Pavoratti not attend your school, or having him come, graduate "make it" in the big time (i.e., ka-ching $$$$), and then ignore his alma mater because he's embarrassed by it--there are real-world examples of this behavior, by the way--is another incentive.

I am so stoked right now! I didn't think I'd ever see the day when a new music building would be built! When I was in grad school, we used to toss around the rumor that the music building was, like, number 5 on the list of campus facilities to be replaced. Apparently, it was a little further down the list, but they did get to it.

Of course, it would be nice to be like the athletic department, that can wish "Hey! It would be cool if we had yet another practice field... or how 'bout some sky boxes!" and it magically appear. But ya gets what'cha can gets.